Previews

Unreal Tournament 2004

"Just an upgrade?" Hardly, as we look at the latest title in the frag-filled series.

You could be forgiven for thinking that Unreal Tournament 2004 might just be more-of-the-same, a Madden-like upgrade with some tweaked graphics and a few new maps and weapons. After all, that was one of the main criticisms levied at UT 2003 when it was released last October -- sure, it looked gorgeous, but it didn't add much to the formula made popular by the original Unreal Tournament.

Maybe the team at Epic Games agreed, or maybe they'd planned it all along, but UT 2004 will certainly offer some major additions. With the return of the popular objective-based "Assault" gametype, a new capture-the-enemy-base "Onslaught" mode, and the introduction of numerous vehicles to the game, the latest installment in the Unreal Tournament series looks to be stretching out past the Quake 3 crowd and edging into areas populated by Planetside, Tribes, Battlefield 1942 and Halo.

We'd grilled Epic designer Cliff "Cliffy B" Bleszinski a few weeks ago at the recent Dallas CPL event for a full preview and interview regarding the game, so when we met up again a few days ago at the recent Atari editors' day, we took the opportunity to dig deeper into many of the new Assault and Onslaught maps, as well as to get a better look at some of the vehicles.

The Assault Begins

We started with a look at some of the new Assault maps, and the first was maybe the most radical of the bunch. Starting in the cold vacuum of outer space, the map comes complete with controllable spaceships offering Descent-style freedom of movement and some Wing Commander-type dogfighting. The level requires one team to assault a mother ship via fighter, destroy the ship's shield generators, and then continue the rest of the attack on foot from inside the ship. As Bleszinski illustrated, handling the fighters is fairly simple, as you can maneuver even in the tight areas housing the lower shield generator. A gravity generator can be switched off, causing large storage containers to float off the ground, and more importantly, opening a secondary route inside to one of the objectives. The team is currently debating putting in an option for the defenders to turn the gravity back on, which could potentially make for some amusing traps of a player happens to be standing in the wrong place when the gravity's turned back on.

One of the most memorable maps from the original Unreal Tournament was the moving train assault, and a spiritual sequel has been created in the form of a new map called "Convoy." The map is in every way bigger than its predecessor, featuring two huge trains running side by side, requiring the attacking team to jump trains, break through a series of obstacles and offload a series of missiles to the convoy. Instead of the old simple skymap, a highly detailed (and scenic) valley sets the stage for the action. Fixed turrets are available to help defenders, and jump pads allow quick access from one train to the other. Bleszinski also demonstrated a shortcut where players can make a death-defying leap off one train to one of the convoy vehicles, using it as a stepping stone to the other train.

Assaulting the shield generator in one of UT 2004's new spacecraft.

Next up was "Robot Factory," an outdoor map set around an industrial city evoking memories of some of the areas found in Unreal II. Epic is bringing back UT boss Xan for UT 2004, and the level tasks the humans with destroying a factory creating some of Xan's cronies. "The idea is that these are recreations of historical events that have happened in the Unreal universe," explains Bleszinski. The level offers a tank that can be used to reach the factory, allowing for some large-scale destruction, completely with flying debris and all the other little touches the Unreal tech offers. The tank pales in comparison to the stationary ion cannon, however, a massive gun that takes a few seconds to charge and has the capability to obliterate just about anything within its path.

The last stop on our Assault tour was a brief look at "Fallen City," a map set in an urban city complete with towering skyscrapers and monorail tracks running about. Bleszinski took the opportunity to talk about UT 2004's support for voice-over-IP, and the fact that you can actually order computer teammates around with a headset. "All of my guys have nicknames like Charlie, Foxtrot, Bravo, Delta, Echo," explains Bleszinski, "you press voice chat and say "Echo -- defend!" and they'll actually pattern match and recognize what you said, so you can just order them by voice instead of the usual game menu."